First projects on the New to me AVL.

Im sorry it has taken me so long to post but I have been having some issues with my leg. I recently had to have a wound vac and then I became allergic to the band aide  so we couldn’t use that. Than last week they did a skin graft on me. I hope this works. I will get another graft in 2 weeks.Ok enough of that!

So any way, I put a couple of warps on to practice on the AVL. I needed to adjust the tension and the auto advance cloth arm. I don’t know how many of you have AVL’s but my arms are raw from the sandpaper beam. I finally got smart and covered it, but looking on the bright side, I won’t have to exfoliate my forearm and elbows for awhile hahahahaha! Also, It is quite a workout lifting all those shafts. I found my rhythm though and I zoned out listening to the music me and my loom was making. Also again, I have given my AVL a name, as I name everything. I decided on Louie. I was searching for a girl name but Louie just seems right. So from this day forward I will address my AVL as LOUIE.

Here is the first project. It is a lace heart scarf. I got the draft from www.Handweaving.net . I wanted to use all of Louie’s 16 shaft so I thought this would be a good little start.

I made it with Walmart #10 cotton. I knew I was going to have tension issues as well as adjusting that arm so I didn’t want to use my 10/2 tencel.

Here is a close up

 

Not perfect, but at least I got most the bugs out.

Here is the next project. I used 10/2 tencel and 10/2 perle cotton

You can see I was still not comfortable with the tension. It got better as I went. I ended up with a nice scarf. Next, wet finish  and then I will post pictures.

Today, I counted out 6000, yards of tencel to dye for my next projects on Louie. I dyed some of it in the indigo crystal batch I had from a couple of weeks ago and the rest I dyed fire red. Im going to do a crackle and network draft from the indigo and white. With the Fire Red, a cute draft of square outlines all bunched together.

I still have not found just the right draft for the Ikat I dyed a couple of weeks ago, but I will persevere. 

Well that is it for now, I want to thank all of you who come to visit. I enjoy seeing where you come from. I would love to hear from you if you would like to say hi or give me some comments on some of these projects I do. The counter I use tells me what state, city, and country you come from and if you have visited before. It is so fun to see that little ol me has a visitor from the Netherlands or Israel or some other wonderful country. I have lots of visitors from Canada, I was so lucky to have visited this beautiful country.   Just today I had visitors from Norway, Canada, Netherlands, Redondo Beach CA, and San Diego CA  just to mention a few. Wow, weavers are everywhere! I look forward to hearing from you!

Time to Dye the Shibori Scarf's, This could be really cool or really ugly!

The Idea I had for the Zebra Shibori scarf was to take pictures of Nemo and then use sections of his stripes in a sort of picture  frame. So I took the pictures and made the stencils. Then I wanted to paint the scarf with dye using the colors of the Kenya (that is where Nemo is from) sky at sunset.

Theses are the pictures I found:

And here is the other one:

I used wax in a sort of Batik method to keep the White-White and to frame the stripes. I just put the dye on, it hasn’t been rinsed yet.

Up a little closer

 

The next step, I will gather the shibori threads and then I am going to use a thicken bleach discharge (which I have never done before). After all that is done I am going to dye the black stripes. This is sooooooo Hard to do. The problem I have ran into (yes I have done this same thing 3 other times ugh!) is the black dye takes about 200 hundred years to rinse out and it runs like you would not believe. I have made a widget that I will put in the bathtub to lay the scarf on to keep it flat so it wont run.   But, just to be on the safe side…I am going to apply wax around the box to keep the black away from the yellow and pink. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. Im running out of time for the Art Show. This is my last chance to get this right.

Here is Nemo one more time…

  

if you look real close to the scarf, you can see the out line of Nemo’s eye, it is up side-down looking at it here… turn your head a little and I think you can see it. Here , I will turn it a little bit… that better?

Where you see white ,I will be dyeing it black. The darker color you see in the picture is the wax.

The next scarf is a Giraffe motif. No I don’t know any Giraffe’s… just a Zebra hehehehehehe!

 

I made this stencil to put at each end but I’ve decided not to use it. Im going to make a little group of Giraffe’s.

Here is the stencil I made of the pattern on a Giraffe.

Here is what it looks like right after I paint the dye on

Im going to do the same discharge method as the Zebra, except I might try just randomly applying the discharge to the shibori pleats and see how it turns out. But maybe not… it is very scary!  Well that's it for now. Tomorrow I will do the next step! See you tomorrow :)

I finished weaving the Zebra Shibori scarf.

Now, Tomorrow I will twist the fringe and get busy on dyeing it. If this turns out good, I will enter it in the Escondido Arts Partnership  Art show. All entries have to be photographed and put on cd by July 17th.   My weaving Anniversary !  If you take a close look you can see that I left squares of 3” by 5” blank… free from shibori threads. Im going to batik the stripes in these squares. Then I will paint around the square with colors of a Kenya sunset. That is where Nemo (the zebra) is from. Then, I will pull the loom shibori stitches and use a Rose red direct dye on the gathered pleats. This is the 3 attempt. I found it very difficult to dye black. The problem isn’t the application of the dye, it is the rising out of the dye without it running all over the place and making a mess on the rest of the scarf. I think I finally got the technique that works and I will take pictures and share my notes so if you want to try something like this, you at least won’t have to make the mistakes I made.

up close to show you the squares…

Nemo! Isn’t he handsome :)

Putting My AVL together…

As I said before, I was a little overwhelmed with the idea of me putting this loom together by myself  but I took a deeeeeeeep breath and dived in.

Here is where I started.

A big heap of wood. Pretty wood mind you, but a heap none the less.

 

More heap!

One more deep breath…

 

Viola!  What a beauty! Now I have all the parts together,  so now I need to go back and hook up all the cables and weights. After that I will attempt putting the computer dobby on and adjust it. If you have ever done this,  I could sure some  helpful hints. :) 

Now some Loom Flair! You know what Im talking about, the pictures of Kids/ Grandkids, Studio Posse, sheep measuring tape, pictures of sheep, stuff like that. What do you have on your Loom? Share your loom flair, maybe post a picture of your loom Flair, that would be fun to see what we all have.

Here is my Loom Flair:

     

Loom Fairy (of course)

 

Yes, that’s right… a loom monkey!

Pictures of  my horses!

 

Shrinky Dink Goldfish, fresh Lavender from the garden, and plenty of horse figures.

 

And of Course the Studio Posse.

                         Chloe Belle

Emma Marie

Mr. Kitty Leopold, Weaving a placemat I believe. He has pictures of me on his loom!

And my pretty little Julie Bean.

Now Im all set!

On July 17th 2010, I celebrate the one year anniversary of learning to weave. I love it!

I have never seen a computer weaving program let alone learning to weave with one. I hope that I can get the hang of it. I have weave point that Ingrid included with the loom for me.

AVL 60” Compu-dobby Production Loom and it is all mine YIPPIE!

Tomorrow morning I am getting up early and hooking a little trailer to my truck and then I'm off to Coronado Island to pick up My new to me AVL loom. It is currently living with Ingrid. Ingrid does not need a loom of this size and she doesn’t weave enough to warrant having a production loom. Not to mention it takes up a lot of space and she is looking to use her room for something else for a change. Ingrid is a wonderful weaver and really loves her Baby wolf.  I do have to say that I am a little overwhelmed with the prospect of having to put this monster together by myself. Then to actually warp it….I don’t know. I hope I can do it!  I plan on taking picture of the process. I wish I knew someone who could help me through the process. It has been a long time since Ingrid has woven anything on this loom and I don’t believe she used all 16 harnesses. I feel so blessed that Ingrid is letting me take this loom.  I have been wishing for a 16 shaft Loom  for so long and my birthday is right around the corner.                          How lucky I am. Thank you Ingrid, I promise to take good care of her.